'When I Found You' by Catherine Ryan Hyde

Official Summary:

While duck hunting one morning, childless, middle-aged Nathan McCann finds a newborn abandoned in the woods. To his shock, the child—wrapped in a sweater and wearing a tiny knitted hat—is still alive. To his wife’s shock, Nathan wants to adopt the boy…but the child’s grandmother steps in. Nathan makes her promise, however, that one day she’ll bring the boy to meet him so he can reveal that he was the one who rescued him.

Fifteen years later, the widower Nathan discovers the child abandoned once again—this time at his doorstep. Named Nat, the teenager has grown into a sullen delinquent whose grandmother can no longer tolerate him. Nathan agrees to care for Nat, and the two engage in a battle of wills that spans years. Still, the older man repeatedly assures the youngster that, unlike the rest of the world, he will never abandon him—not even when Nat suffers a trauma that changes both of their lives forever.

From the bestselling author of Pay It Forward comes When I Found You, an exquisite, emotional tale of the unexpected bonds that nothing in life can break.

Review:

Let me start off by saying that if it weren't for Kindle First* I wouldn't have ever heard of, never mind downloaded, 'When I Found You'. It's yet another Prime benefit that helps keep my reading list longer than it needs to be and filled with a more diverse breadth of genres. If it weren't for the services like this one, Kindle Unlimited and the Lending Library, the infamous to-be-read pile would look more like that of a Vampire Diaries fan girl then it already does... and that's (probably) saying something***.

Anyway, this is supposed to be a book review, not some free lip-service for the retail giants, so let's get on with it.

'When I Found You' is rightly billed as an emotional read, but is it "exquisite"? In a word, no. Don't get me wrong, it's pretty good and worth the journey, but I wasn't floored by it and I certainly wouldn't use a word like exquisite to describe this particular fiction. Like many others I found that the characters came across as one dimensional and lacking any sense of passion. Even then, the story itself wasn't attention grabbing though the plot has enough going on where it kept me interested.

Bottom Line: 'When I Found You' is a great, middle of the road kind of read. It's an interesting story founded on a compelling idea, but the delivery seems to be missing something that I can't quiet put my finger on so I'll just say that it feels a bit empty and leave it at that. Overall, worth the time if you're usually into reads like 'This is Where I Leave You' and 'Pearl' - although, my opinion is that both of those titles are better than this one - or you love crappy Helen Hunt movies. 

*If you haven't heard of Kindle First then let me break it down for you: Do you have an Amazon Prime subscription? If you don't, you do your primary reading on a Kindle and you're constantly looking for new titles then you should. It's a little known benefit where Kindle owners get to choose two** titles from four pre-selected early releases each month. It's a great way for lazy readers (like myself) to keep that to-be-read pile insurmountably high.

**Ah-ha! So you've heard of the program and you could've sworn that you only got one title a month, right? As of 2015 Amazon is now letting us lowly Prime subscribers increase our monthly haul to two of the four instead of just the one. Pretty exciting stuff, I know.

***Does this really surprise anyone?

'Gone Girl' by Gillian Flynn

Official Summary:

On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne’s fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick’s clever and beautiful wife disappears from their rented McMansion on the Mississippi River. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn’t doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife’s head, but passages from Amy's diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge. Under mounting pressure from the police and the media—as well as Amy’s fiercely doting parents—the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he’s definitely bitter—but is he really a killer?

 As the cops close in, every couple in town is soon wondering how well they know the one that they love. With his twin sister, Margo, at his side, Nick stands by his innocence. Trouble is, if Nick didn’t do it, where is that beautiful wife? And what was in that silvery gift box hidden in the back of her bedroom closet?

Review: 

I have to stop doing this. I have to stop seeing a book title everywhere and thinking I'm missing out if I don't add it to my TBR pile. I have to stop having thoughts like 'gee - it's on top of the NYT best seller list so it must be good' and 'someone is making a movie out of it so there must be something to it!' I have to stop doing all of this.

Instead, I need to remember that I can't stand to sit through 85% of movie theater drivel and life is too short to get all glossy eyed and subservient to our 'thought leaders' over in the NYT editorial office. Most importantly, I should remember what happened the last time I let myself get swept away in the must-read-it-madness... and someone is planning on making a movie about that one too, aren't they?

My point is that something can be critically acclaimed and still have a predictable plot line. It can be elegant social commentary, but absolutely empty of anything real, gritty or plain old fun.

Bottom Line: The characters are developed enough for you to have personal opinions about but don't fool yourself, you won't like them and they won't surprise you. The biggest 'meh' about the whole thing was the ending. Sure - I get it, but I think it was a cop-out and a disappointing ending given the narrative. Read this if you're a fan of contemporary fiction that leave you with a sense of cosmic justice but little else.

Have you read Gone Girl? Do you agree or vehemently disagree with my review above? Let me know what you thought in the comments below!

'A Friend of the Family' by Lauren Grodstein

Official Summary:

Pete Dizinoff, a skilled and successful New Jersey internist, has a loving and devoted wife, a network of close friends, an impressive house, and, most of all, a son, Alec, now nineteen, on whom he has pinned all his hopes. But Pete hadn’t expected his best friend’s troubled daughter to set her sights on his boy. When Alec falls under her spell, Pete sets out to derail the romance, never foreseeing the devastating consequences. In a riveting story of suburban tragedy, Lauren Grodstein charts a father’s fall from grace as he struggles to save his family, his reputation, and himself.

Review:

In the first few pages of A Friend of the Family a few interesting things are revealed about Dr. Pete Dizinoff. For starters, he's an upper middle aged man whose been cast out by his wife and son to live in the room above the garage. He's scared to pick up the phone to talk to his best friend. And then as if all that isn't bad enough, some crazy guy is accusing him of terrible things and throwing bottles at him at the waterfront.

Whoa, right? Heavy even. I found myself needing to find out what kind of  terrible things did this guy do. What heinous things would a person need to do to lose a best friend, a job and the love of your family in one fell swoop?

But then you know what happened? Those questions weren't  addressed in any sort of meaningful way for what felt like hundreds of pages. The story doesn't even come back around to the crazy guy throwing bottles until the last fifty or so pages and by then I didn't care. I'd spent so long reading about all the baby-killer crap* that by the time anything remotely concentrated on the really interesting plot points started it was too late.

What is amazing here, and why I think this book won all sorts of critics praises, is Lauren Grodstein has an uncanny ability to create vivid, believably flawed people. What's even more praise worthy is that if the internet is to be believed, she was a 31 year old single woman when this book about a late middle-aged family man was written and when I tell you that I needed to recheck that this was a female author about a quarter of the way through I'm not kidding - the voice is just that convincing.

The Bottom Line: The writing is stellar, the characters feel like they could step out of the page at any second, and the first few chapters compelled me to keep reading. Unfortunately, it's my humble opinion that the entire focus of the book feels unbelievable and forced at times with the added issue of an ending that feels rushed and tacked on. While I would love to recommend this title based on the quality of the prose alone, the storytelling itself must take precedent, and so this one gets a read at your own risk warning.

*Which, in it's own right, was interesting but entirely unbelievable. And just to be clear it wasn't a Sally-Jesse daytime talk show type of unbelievable... more like the 'that just wouldn't happen like that' variety